"Sevier Station, gentlemen," he suggested, mildly. "Train stops hyah foh supper." The train ran bumping along the track and stopped. The passengers rose and made their way out leisurely. In the noise, they did not hear an altercation that was going on at the back of the car. Judson had stiffened himself back in his seat. "My God! I cahn't get out hyah! Thah-thah are folks in thet house thet know me." He panted for breath with sheer terror; his eye gleamed dangerously. Foulke and the conductor stood over him anxiously. For the first time the conductor saw that he was handcuffed. "Yes," explained Foulke rapidly, in a whisper. "Bringin' him to Raleigh from Tennessee, on riquisition from Governor Something in the voice startled the old woman. She looked at him, raised her head, listening, and then, recollecting herself, sat down, laughing. to stand his trial for manslaughter. Mr. me. It will only be for a few minutes. Judson!" raising his voice; "let me I'll never see you again." make you acquainted with Captain Arny. Mr. Judson," he proceeded in a hurried, deprecating tone, "hes come with me clar from the Nantahela range, whah Iwhah I—met him, and has give me no trouble whatsoever. He has conducted himself like the high-toned gentleman which Sheriff Roylston -I will make no trouble now," panted Judson. "Only let me stay in the car. Foh God's sake, Captain! The deputy sheriff and conductor exchanged perplexed glances. "Come, come, Mr. Judson," said Arny, authoritatively, "Captain Foulke must have his supper 'n somethin' warmin'. So must you. See hyah now!" wrapping the gray shawl which was common in use among men at that time about the prisoner so as to conceal his arms, and pulling his hat well over his brows. "Yoh own wife wouldn't know yoh, sah. Come now. You can sit in the parlor if yoh doan keer to take supper. On yoh parole, sah.” Judson hesitated, looking through the lighted windows of the inn with a terrified yet longing eye. Figures moved dimly within. "I'll go,” he said, starting forward. "I'll sit thah. I'll not try to escape, so help me God." What with the sick baby and the tired mother, Miss Dilly had much to do that evening. She soon, however, had both of them comfortably disposed in her own room for the night, and then hurried down to see if any one else needed her. 66 Why, Squire," she said, bustling into the kitchen, "thah's a gentleman alone in the parloh, eatin' nothin'." "He's ailin', Miss Dilly. Never mind him. He doan want nothin'." But Miss Dilly was not used to leave ailing people alone. She made ready a steaming cup of tea. "I'm so sorry yoh feelin' porely, sah," she said. 66 Won't yoh take this, jest to warm yoh?" "No," said the man, gruffly. Miss Dilly, unused to rebuff, stood hesitating. The lamplight shone full on her gray hair and kind blue eyes. “Don't go,” said Judson. "Stay with "Thet's just what I allus say to myself," she said. "The folks come up hyah, 'n stay jest long enough foh me to find they're dear friends, 'n go, 'n I never see them again." "And yoh're satisfied with sech friends as the cars bring yoh every day?" he sneered, savagely. Miss Dilly drew herself up with a certain dignity. "They're all my friends, as I said. But I have my own people, sah. Blood of my blood and bone of my bone. The dear Lord sent them an' me into the world together." 66 'Who are they?" he said in a lower tone. "Our family? Thar's my brother, sah, Colonel James Holmes. I'm waitin' hyah for him now. I'm expectin' him every day. An' my father 'n mother: they're up on the Old Black. An' thah's a child in our family," she added with a proud rising of the voice. He's my brother's son. He is sech a boy 's yoh never hear of now, sah. He was jest seven when he-went away." She turned her head, the tears creeping down her withered cheeks. The prisoner half rose, with a muttered exclamation. "What's that? Who-" cried Miss Dilly. "I beg yoh pardon, sah, I thought I heard a name What do you mean?" "Nothing-nothing. I thought yoh said a name that I used to be called at home--mother an' Jem an' all of them. I haven't heard it foh years. I reckin it was talkin' of them made me fancy it. I'm afeerd my mind's gettin' foolish stud'in' about Jem, an expectin' him." "An' yoh think he'll come?" "I know it," said Miss Dilly, quietly. "Squire Barr, sometimes he says: Maybe the Colonel's merried a rich wife, in some of those big Western towns, and hes done forgot us all.' An' the girls, I know they're afeered he's dead. But he'll come. Every day since he went away I've asked the Lord to send him back so he-hes to come." 66 Judson with a fierce gesture motioned the men aside. I must speak a word to her." He crossed the room to where Miss Dilly stood. "Doan yoh git tired prayin' foh him! For God's sake doan git tired! An' maybe he kin come back!" The train was gone, and Miss Dilly went about her work, stupefied. Why had she talked of Jem and his boy to this man? She never spoke of them to strangers. It seemed as if the good Lord had made her do it to-night. She prayed for her brother that night as she never had prayed before. She did not know why she did it. Nothing in this gruff stranger had reminded her of saucy, affectionate Jem. But when everybody in the inn was in bed and asleep, she crept on to the porch and stood looking out into the gray, fathomless night. Somewhere out in that great unknown world-he was. He might VOL. IV.-74 The people at the station noticed a change in Miss Dilly after that night. She had always been kind, but now she was tender to every living thing she could reach, with the tenderness which a mother shows to a sick child. She had always been cheerful, but now she was breathlessly anxious to make every one about her happy and merry. "I reckon," said Colonel Royall, shaking his head, "she's a ripenin' fur the end. The doors is openin' an the glory's a shinin' down on her." An uneasy dread seized the station when this opinion was made known. Everybody whispered and kept an anxious watch on Miss Dilly's coughs and appetite. Mrs. Barr, who was a dribbling woman as to mind, at last told her what they feared. Miss Dilly laughed a sound, healthy laugh. "It's not death at all that's comin', Missoury," she said. "It's Jem! The Lord isn't deaf. Nor hard of heart. Neither hes he gone on a journey, as the prophet says. He'll send my brother back to me. I'm thinkin' of it contino vally now. If one of you's sick I think what if that was Jem? An' I try to help you. And if another one's downhearted, I think, what if that was Jem? An' I try to cheer him up. That's the truth, Missoury. It isn't death, it's Jem." "If the Lord shud disappoint her after all," the Squire muttered with bated breath when he heard this report from his wife. Summer came, and winter, and summer again, until two years had gone by. Judson had stood his trial and been convicted and served out his brief term of imprisonment. The day he received his discharge, the warden of the prison, as usual, spoke a few kind words of warning and counsel to him at parting. He was startled when Judson, who was noted as a reticent, gruff man, answered him formally: "Sah, yoh're quite right. I'd been runnin' down, steady for ten year. Down. Sudden, one day, like a flash of lightnin' across my path, I was made to know of a woman who shall be nameless hyahwho hed loved me an' believed in me all my life. Thet has made a different man of me. Sah, she's kep' a holt on me! She's tied me to God with her pra'ars! I cahn't get loose!" he cried with a nervous gulp in his throat. 66 Sah, I thank yoh foh yoh words. I'm goin' to her to try to be the man yoh say. I'm goin' to trust to her an' God to pull me through!" Before he left, the warden gave him more advice. "Take your own name, Judson," he said. "I suspect you are now under an alias. Say nothing to this woman of your past life. Begin afresh where it is not known, and may God bless you, sah." This was in October. Christmas, that year, brought, as usual, a stir of delightful excitement to the inn. Sevier Station knew nothing of the high significance which modern thought attaches to the great festival of the Christian Year. It was the day, however, on which Colonel Royall sent, before breakfast, a bumper of foaming egg-nog to every white man and woman in the clarin'. Every negro who asked for it had "a warmin' of whiskey, at the Colonel's expense. It was the day, too, on which Squire Barr gave his annual tremenjous dinner of turkey and chicken pie, at which the six families of the village all sate down together. Mrs. Missoury Barr, also, made a practice of sending dishes of roast pork and hominy, or 'possum stewed in rice and molasses, or some such delicacy, to every negro cabin. There was a general interchange of gifts: brier-wood pipes, or pinchbeck scarf-pins, or cakes of soap in the shape of dog's heads, all of which elegant trifles had been purchased from travelling peddlers, months before, and stored away for the great occasion. Miss Dilly, you may be sure, was quite ready for Christmas. Her locked drawer was full of socks and mufflers knitted by herself, all of bright red, as "bein' more cheerin'." Nobody was forgotten in that drawer, from the Squire to the least pickaninny in the quarters. There was a vague idea throughout the clarin' that the day was one in which to be friendly and to give old grudges the go-by: the Lord (with whom Aunt Dilly was better acquainted than the rest) was supposed, for some reason, to be nearer at hand on that day than usual, though not so near as to make anybody uncomfortable. Father Ruggles, the jolly old Methodist itinerant, was up in the mountains, and had sent word he was coming down for his Christmas dinner. "He'll ask a blessin' on the meal, thank Heaven!" said Mrs. Missoury with a devout sigh. The Squire hurried with the news to find the Colonel. "It'll be a big occasion," he said, triumphantly. "Father Ruggles 'll be equal to a turkey himself. I depend on you foh makin' de coffee, Colonel. Sam's that eggsited now he doan know what he's about." "Suhtenly, suhtenly! But really, Mrs. Missoury 'd better double de supply of mince-pie," he suggested, anxiously. "Father Ruggles is tahrible fond of mince." Preparations went on with increasing force and vigor. They reached full completion the day before Christmas. Then the station paused to take breath before the great event. Father Ruggles arrived at noon, and in five minutes had shaken hands with everybody, black and white, and put them all in good humor with him, themselves, and each other. "A doan like Miss Dilly's looks,” he said, lowering his voice, when he and the Colonel and Squire were seated together in high conclave on the gallery. “She's blue 'n peaked about the jaws. Old age, heh?" "Not a bit of it!" rejoined Preston, quickly. "She's a young woman, comparatively. It's Jem. Colonel James. She's done tired out waitin' on that man. These last two year she's took to expect |